


From Gloom to Brightest Sunshine

by Nerdanel (telanaris)



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-09-05
Updated: 2018-02-07
Packaged: 2018-11-05 09:02:45
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 16
Words: 18,880
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11010249
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/telanaris/pseuds/Nerdanel
Summary: A collection of the work I've done (mostly one-shots) for the DA Drunk Writing Circle on tumblr, as well as little drabbles that didn't quite fit into my main fic, There is Only Forward.





	1. Index

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> An Introduction.

This work is a collection of short pieces I have completed as part of the weekly Drunk Writing Circle on Tumblr, sometimes related to my longer fic There Is Always Forward, sometimes not. Since they are being published non-sequentially, I have recently created this introduction chapter to organize the works presented here, so that way those who are interested can navigate easily to the works they wish to view.

1\. **beyond the rhododendron**  
Cole tries to comfort a distraught Lavellan after the events of Trespasser.  
Cole and Lavellan (Solavellan if you squint) | Lavellan POV | Gen/SFW

2\. **The Vigil at Vir Vian**  
Solas follows the Inquisition up the mountainside after the battle at Haven. But at the pass where the they have camped, his eyes keep turning to the path back to the village, waiting, hoping that the Herald found a way out in time.  
Solas x Lavellan | Solas POV | SFW

3\. **Fertility Control**  
TW: Pregnancy (sort of!) | Solas x Lavellan | Solas POV | **NSFW** (and also a fluffy? and angsty?)

4\. **First Thaw**  
Mostly just Varric, being a good bro.  
Varric, Cole, Lavellan, Dorian | Varric POV | SFW/gen/fluff

5\. **her lips (crimson, stained with wine)**  
Solas comes to the Herald’s Rest looking for Cole and sees something he wishes he hadn’t. Post-Crestwood Breakup.  
Solas x Lavellan | Solas POV | SFW, angst

6\. **Thaihyn Beneath the Stars**  
Solas and Lavellan getting drunk and frisky on top of the Mage Tower.  
Solas x Lavellan | Solas POV | SFW

7\. **But That Glittering Seed**  
Solas struggles to keep his “ill-considered” kiss with the Inquisitor out of his mind while she is away from Skyhold.  
Solas x Lavellan | Solas POV | SFW

8\. **Bewildered**  
Lavellan is unsure what to make of Solas during the journey to the Temple of Sacred Ashes.  
Solas, Lavellan (pre-romance) | Lavellan POV | SFW

9\. **Vacivity—The Lonely Quiet**  
Lavellan tries to come to terms with the loss of her arm and with it, the anchor. Post-Trespasser.  
Solas x Lavellan | Lavellan POV | SFW

10\. **He should have burned the clothes a long time ago.**  
Post-Trespasser.  
Solas x Lavellan | Solas POV | SFW/angst

11.  **The Pups of Fen'Harel**  
Dad!Solas. Solas spending some time with his sons before his third child is born.  
Solas x Lavellan | Solas POV | SFW/Gen/Fluff

12\. **Eager to Rise**  
Dad!Solas. Solas watching the sunrise with his second born son.  
Solas x Lavellan | Solas POV | SFW/Gen/Fluff

13\. **An Impossible Spring  
** Fluff n' smut in the Forbidden Oasis **  
**Solas x Lavellan | Solas POV | **NSFW**

14.  **Radamancy**  
Blurb w/Solas POV set during my fic, There Is Only Forward (in Chapter 16: Perigee) **  
**Solas x Lavellan | Solas POV | SFW

15\. **The Rabbit and the Dog**  
While salacious rumors fly in Orlais, Commander Rutherford searches for a way to relief the Inquisitor of the pain the anchor is causing. **  
**Cullen x Lavellan (unrequited) | Implied Solas x Lavellan | Pre-Trespasser | Cullen POV  
 ***contains minor spoilers for my fic, There Is Only Forward.**  



	2. beyond the rhododendron

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Cole tries to comfort Lavellan after the events of Trespasser.

She woke at once, her whole body rigid, with the deep of night pressed close upon her like a shroud. It was that strange kind of wakefulness, all of her edges alert and her senses sharpened: the feeling of waking in danger, although she didn’t know why. She wasn’t sure what to do about it—she could barely make out the wall of the canvas tent six inches in front of her, never mind identify what threat or creeping doubt had put her in such a state of vigilance—but all the same, her hands moved forward, slowly, in the dark, feeling for anything that she might use to defend herself. Gradually, so that her blankets or hardly rustled, she raised herself into a sitting position.

“You are awake.”

She nearly jumped out of her skin.

She turned to his familiar voice, her hand on her chest, trying (in vain) to calm the thundering of her heart. But even in such darkness, it was impossible not to recognize him by his silhouette: even in the dead of night, he was still wearing his massive hat.

“Creators, Cole, you had me frightened out of my wits. I could have hurt you.”

She couldn’t make out his expression in the dark, but at the forlorn tone in his voice, she could envision well enough to expression on his face.

“It is wrong, for me to be here. Isn’t it?”

But she had never been able to scold him. Before, she’d felt so fiercely protective of him, always wanting to wrap her explanations and corrections in kindnesses. Since they’d defeated Corypheus, it had only gotten worse. Varric called her Clucks when she got particularly overbearing—a Mother Hen. It did little to deter her. She couldn’t help herself. It felt like her own life was in free fall. She couldn’t see what fate had in store for her Inquisition: whether there was work yet to do, whether all of her dear friends would scatter back to their previous lives at all ends of the continent, whether she would be able to finally return home. Providing Cole with patient and gentle guidance as he became more human was one of the few things that made her feel grounded.

No matter how evident the intrusion upon her privacy would have been to anyone else, she couldn’t bring herself to reprimand him too strongly, even now.

“It is, a little bit,” she said, quietly. “It’s the middle of the night, and I didn’t invite you.”

“But you did,” he insisted, almost petulantly. “Well, sort of. I heard you—not like I used to, not in my head. You talk in your sleep, speak of stories, confessions, invitations. The others… pretend not to notice. Should I have pretended, too?”

Well, that was brilliant. What pitiful things had the others heard her saying as she tossed and turned, walking the Fade? (Being chase through it—)

“No, that’s alright, Cole,” she said, running a hand through her hair. “You don’t always need to pretend just because others are. But you might have waited until morning.”

“It can’t wait. I have to show you now.”

That had her curious. “Show me what?”

“Come with me?”

She sighed. “Will it be dangerous?”

“No!” Cole chirped brightly, sensing, perhaps, that she was about to give in (and against her better judgement.) “But it is very dark! You might bring your staff, for light.”

There was some grumbling, some shuffling. She shooed Cole out of her tent as her fingers felt around in the dark for the wrapped leather grip or the polished metal of her staff, then for her linen shirt, to pull over her sleeping clothes. It was cool at night, and she didn’t know how far from camp Cole’s excursion would take her. As in all things, she could hardly make any assumptions based on what others would have considered an appropriate or comfortable distance to travel in the middle of the night.

A moment later, she emerged from her tent. The moon was a pale, slender crescent in the sky, but the stars were brilliant, and her eyes were adjusting. With a murmured word and a wave of her hand, the translucent, irregularly shaped gemstone at the top of her staff began to glow with a pale white light. She saw Cole, standing in front of where their campfire used to be (it must have been quite late if there weren’t even embers left to glow) looking at once enthusiastic and nervous.

“It isn’t far,” he said, and without a further explanation set off into the trees.

He was so quiet as he crept among the underbrush, crouched as if he was afraid of being seen. But he’d given no warning to her, and she was still too groggy to command her full powers of balance and stealth, so she followed behind him, wearily.

A couple of times, she almost lost him. She’d stand in a circle of trees, her mouth a grim line, only to turn with a yelp and find him a few inches from her, his eyes reflecting the light of her staff like great lanterns. Luckily (or perhaps, depending on how far they were going, unfortunately) her surprise didn’t dampen his eagerness in the slightest.

She couldn’t say how long they’d been walking before Cole raised his hand to stop her, and put a finger to his lips. Quiet. Then, he inched forward, peering through the shining leaves of a dense rhododendron and into the glade beyond. She stepped carefully up to him, careful not to snap any twigs or crush any leaves underfoot, her toes curling in the damp soil before she knelt beside him.

Beyond the rhododendron, the trees cleared before a towering cliff face. She could just barely make out a small cleft in the rocks. A wolf howled nearby; Cole reached out and clasped her hand. The cleft revealed itself to be the mouth of a cave when, to her utter surprise, a litter of pups came bounding out of it, lifting their faces as if to howl in kind, although the sound they made were far more like squeaks to her ears.

Their mother (she assumed) came bounding into the clearing, her jaws clamped tightly around some fresh kill, which she neatly set at the feet of her children. For a time, in silence, she just watched the devour it. When the bones were licked clean, snapped for their marrow, the pups began to play. Tumbling, tugging, snapping joyfully at one another. They bounded around the perimeter of the glade under the watchful eyes of their mother, and Cole held her hand all the while. Which was good, because it felt like there was something lodged solidly in her throat; it was suddenly difficult to swallow. She was distantly aware that her eyes were watering, her grief threatening to boil out of control all over again and sink her with it.

“See,” he whispered, quietly.

“They’re adorable, Cole,” she responded, but there was an edge in her voice, something tense, an undeniable un-truth. “But I don’t see why—”

“When you sleep, you talk about them,” he said, cutting her off, his voice a furtive hiss, and the thumb of his hand began to trace great arcs on the back of hers, as if to soothe her. She wondered who had taught him that. “Stalking, stealing, chasing you in your dream. You tell them all sorts of things, sorrowed in your solitude, collected things and confessions. But… you do it when you are awake, too, with the wild ones. That look you get, distant and dreamy, a cup of tea clouded with milk, a luxury you could never afford before. As if with every glance you are punishing yourself for something that you didn’t lose—it was real—he just left!—or not on purpose, or couldn’t stop from losing. The fault was never yours. And sometimes,” he said, and at the warm touch of his other hand on her shoulder she couldn’t help but turn to look at him, and his eyes were so wide and his expression so sincere, so serious, as if he wanted nothing more than for her to believe—

“Sometimes a wolf is just a wolf, and it is not your fault if it bites.”


	3. The Vigil at Vir Vian

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Solas follows the Inquisition up the mountainside after the battle at Haven. But at the pass where the they have camped, his eyes keep turning to the path back to the village, waiting, hoping that the Herald found a way out in time.

A bitter wind had been howling, rustling the branches of the tall fir trees that dotted the path up the mountain, so loud that he could barely hear Cassandra’s voice each time she turned to shout to him. The storm was deafening, a chorus of white noise that muffled all else. But they had heard the sound of the last trebuchet’s payload as it struck the mountaintops, a boom that echoed and carried through the valley, resounding.

Solas had turned just in time to see the tumultuous cloud of snow and ice hurtling down the mountainside. They could barely make out Haven through the storm, but while it had burned, the fire had been so fierce that even through the gale they could see a faint glow, and the dark column of smoke that rose from the settlement. Then, in a moment, it was gone: the snow rushed over the wreckage and smote Haven’s ruin in a blanket of ice. They had heard the dragon give one last fearsome cry, and then, there was silence.

But that had been hours ago, now. They had followed the tracks of the others up the mountainside, and arrived in a notch between the mountain tops. It was a small cleft, but it provided some shelter against the wind, and they would go no farther tonight.

The pass was more storied than any among the Inquisition seemed to know. But Solas knew this place: its ancient name, (Vir Vian, the Open Path) and the armies of old that had taken refuge here, the heroes that led them, the wars in which they fought.

He could have shared that, with her. Lavellan would have listened. In times of trouble and uncertainty, they had always been able to simply talk to one another. But no one was speaking now. If they did, they did so in grave, hushed whispers. And the reason that their talk was so solemn was because she was gone.

For all his faults, Commander Cullen had done an excellent job of guiding the Inquisition up the mountain. They had not abandoned the injured: the able had pulled them up the pass in barrows, and they lay, now, within the shelter of what few tents the Inquisition had been able to salvage before fleeing. When he’d reached the mountain top, he’d gone immediately to Mother Giselle, and offered his help in tending to the wounded.

But Cassandra had followed him, and stopped him with a gentle hand on his arm. Her eyes, kind but firm when she told him, “You have done enough.”

She was right. He had fought hard—had nearly fallen, collapsed from exhaustion after all the magic he’d spun in defense of the Herald—and he was still weak. To try and pull more magic through from the Fade now, after everything he’d already done that evening, was not only foolish but dangerous. But still, he fought Cassandra: he wanted to help. He wanted, needed, something, anything; a distraction to keep him from thinking of her. (That he had left her behind—!)

Cassandra had won out in the end; she and Mother Giselle (who could see just as plainly the weariness on his face) had united against him, and forced him to rest. He sat now on the edge of the camp, swaddled in a blanket Cassandra had bullied him into taking, his eyes on the cleft that led to the path back to Haven. There was a blazing fire several paces behind him, around which the Inquisition’s leaders were clustered, arguing amongst themselves. He could not feel the heat of it, but the wind carried the smoke in his direction, and the smell was so strong: of burning wood and hissing sap, the same smells that had been thick in the air in Haven, where he had said goodbye to the Herald.

There was one simple fact that no matter how much he tried, he could not put out of his head: they had left her to die. When they had parted, he had made her promise him, vow to him (dirth’vhen’an) that she would try to find a way out (find a way back to him.) But all the promises in the world meant little if she had not ran clear of the avalanche in time; if she had not found her way to the tunnels; if she had not made it to the path; if, if, if….

He could hear the rest of them still arguing behind him: Josephine, Cullen, Cassandra. Cullen would not send a party of scouts down the mountainside to look for her. Even if she had somehow escaped, he said, there was no use looking for her in the storm. The visibility was so bad that the scouts were more likely to get lost than they were to find any trace of the Herald, and without a clear plan for what they would do next, or where they would go, he could not afford to lose the soldiers he still had left.

Though they would not admit it, he could hear it in their voices. They had given up on her.

And perhaps he should, too. Through the thick cloud of panic and grief that lay upon him, he kept insisting to himself, I will find another way. The Herald had been a part of his plans from the time she had woke in Haven, but he did not need her to accomplish his goals. He was still a part of the Inquisition. He would find another way to reclaim the orb from Corypheus. The plan would shift, but his path was still before his feet. He was adaptable.

But no matter how many times he reassured himself of those facts, the pain that he felt did not lessen. There was a nagging sensation in the deep places of his soul that he tried so desperately to silence. It pushed through past his denial and manifested in a strange (and dangerous) way: he felt an almost irresistible urge to pick a fight with Commander Cullen.

It was Cullen who had left Haven so poorly defended. It was Cullen who had commanded the battle so poorly that they had no choice left but to retreat. It was Cullen who had condoned the Herald’s offer to sacrifice herself for the others. It was Cullen’s folly, Cullen’s carelessness; Solas wanted to stride over to him and his and yell and scream. To do so would be an extremely poor exercise of judgement—they were never on excellent terms, the ex-Templar and the apostate—but he couldn’t stop the urge from mounting within him. The rational part of him knew that Cullen could not bear the full weight of the blame for what had happened, but Solas wanted to lash out at someone, anyone, just to allow himself to feel something else. Even an anger, a hatred, burning hot, would be preferable to this… despair he felt, however inexplicable and inexcusable it was.

He had woken to find the world changed beyond recognition, with everything he had loved and held dear vanished without a trace, without even a remembrance. It was every bit as full of injustice and oppression as it had been when he’d raised the Veil to put an end to those very things. He had destroyed his home so that his people might be free: but his people were long dead, and no one, not even their descendants, had anything resembling the freedom he had tried to give them.

Lavellan was no different. She did not change any of that. And no matter what fondness he felt for her, what moments they shared, it did not change the fact that she would be dead, sooner or later; that he would trade her life and the lives of so many others for a chance to put right his own mistakes, mistakes that none of them should have ever had to endure. He had known this from the beginning. Any closeness between them, any fondness he had felt towards her, had been a tool, a weapon: the more she trusted him, the easier it would be to steer the Inquisition in the right direction, to lead it on a path that would end with him reclaiming his orb and fleeing.

He had always known that she would be dead, sooner or later; so why did it grieve him so terribly that the time had come sooner?

He had drawn the blanket over his head and shoulders like a cloak; with gaze trained on the cleft between the mountains, and his peripheral vision so limited, he did not see Cassandra approach until she was beside him. She sat on the boulder alongside him, and extended her arms to him, a steaming mug in her hands.

“It is not much,” she said, “but it is warm.”

Solas turned, then took the mug from her, raising it to his face. Tea. He detested it. But Cassandra was making an effort to be kind. He lifted it to his lips and took an experimental sip. It was every bit as vile as he expected it to be (he had to try very hard to keep the look of disgust off his face, to avoid offending the Seeker) but the rush of warmth as it made its way down his throat and into his core was very welcome.

“Thank you,” he said, quietly, lowering the mug to his lap.

“Of course.” Then Cassandra was quiet for a long time; he was not looking at her, but he could tell she was looking at him. When she did not speak, he turned his head towards her, a questioning look in his stare.

Cassandra sighed, and turned her gaze to the notch between the mountains, back in Haven’s direction. “I know you care for her.” Solas opened his mouth to protest, but she silenced him with a hand, a gesture of command. “We all do, Solas, it is not a secret. This is not easy for any of us.” Then, she took a deep breath. “I know that, in the beginning, before she was awake, we did not have… the most cordial of relationships. But I want to assure you that, if the Herald does not…” and here her voice trailed off uneasily, and a look of woe came over her face, before she turned her gaze to her feet.

Then, looking back at Solas, meeting his eyes with a hard gaze: “You are safe, in the Inquisition. Even without her. You were treated with suspicion when you first arrived, it is true. But you have more than proved your loyalty. I promise you that, whatever happens, no harm will fall upon you in the Inquisition while I am still a part of it.”

Solas looked at her, strangely. Perhaps that was the greatest damnation of all: that he was so swept up in the loss of the Herald, he had not yet considered how her absence would affect his safety within the Inquisition. It was true: he had only come to feel anything like safety among the Chantry folk because Lavellan had reassured him, countless times, that she would protect him. That, as Herald, she would not tolerate any suspicion of him, or any threat to his person.

He smiled weakly at Cassandra. “Thank you, Seeker. I—”

“There! It’s her!” and Cullen cutting across the snow, rushing towards the cleft where—his heart skipped a beat—he could not even make out her features—but there, in the darkness, the unmistakable twinkling of the anchor.

Solas stood at once, and with such vigor that he splashed hot tea down the front of his breeches. He hissed a curse, setting the mug down on the boulder behind him as Cassandra rushed forward in Cullen’s direction. Solas wrapped the blanket under his arm and followed after them. It was her, surely. It could be no one else. But he would not be able to relax until he saw, for certain.

And there she was: sunk in the snow, collapsed from weakness or weariness, or some other ailment, he did not know. But she was here. Against all odds, she was here, she was alive.

Cullen had already lifted her out of the snow. He held her in his arms (too close, too close to his chest) but that did not deter Solas. He walked straight up to him, reaching out for the Herald; softly, he brought his hand to her cheek. It was terribly cold. But even that small touch provoked a response: her eyelashes fluttered, fitfully, and she murmured something indistinguishable as she tilted her head closer to his hand.

For a moment, all he could do was look at her: the stray hairs falling into her face, the exposed column of her throat, the slight rise and fall of her chest as she breathed, that tell-tale sign that she was not done kicking, not yet. Just the look of her, living, breathing, was enough to send a warmth spreading through his chest that was far more pleasant and far more comforting than the tea had been. The cascade of relief pouring over him was nearly overwhelming. In that moment, all his plans meant far less to him than the simple fact that, by some miracle (what Cassandra would no doubt be quick to call Providence) she had found her way back to him.

(That thought, in itself, was unsettling; he did not give himself long to linger in it.)

“Move her over to one of the cots near the fire,” he said, stepping out of Cullen’s way and pointing him in the right direction. “She has at least two wounds that will need to be cleaned, and dressed. Cassandra,” he said, turning to the Seeker. “Go to Mother Giselle and bring me whatever instruments she can spare, and bring them to me.”

He could see the look of disapproval on her face before she even spoke, all the her insistences resurfacing again from just hours before. But you’re tired, but you’re spent, but you fought so hard, but there are others who could perform the same tasks. “But you—”

“I’ve rested enough,” he said firmly, and Cassandra relented. He would bandage the wound to her shoulder; he would remove, as painlessly as he could, the arrow that was still plainly buried in her leg.

And then he would wait, at her side, until she woke.


	4. Fertility Control

It had been a long journey back from the Emerald Graves. She had been loathe to leave; she’d fallen in love with the woods, the great trees. But for his part, Solas always looked forward to returning to Skyhold, however briefly. It meant a return to her bedroom at the top of the tower (by now, it was an unspoken assumption between the two of them that they would share the bed at night) and all the privacy and comfort that came with it.

(At the top of the tower, so far from everyone else, there was no restraint: he would have her screaming with pleasure, and no one else would hear but him.)

It was the early morning of a dull, overcast day. The light that came in through the colored glass of the windows was soft and diffused. She had raised herself from the plush textiles with a languid stretch to light a fire in the hearth; she stood before it now, her back to him, the firelight setting an orange halo about her edges. Solas was stretched across the bed, a faint smile on his face, admiring her: the dimples at the small of her back, the shapely curve of her buttocks, the slight cock of her hips as she waited for the kettle on the hearth to sing.

“I thought you didn’t drink tea,” he said, looking up at her as she returned to the bed, a warm mug clutched between her delicate hands. He’d seen her empty a small package of herbs into the cup before she’d poured the steaming water into it.

“I don’t,” she said, with a grin, but the horrid smell steaming off the mug said otherwise. “This isn’t tea, it’s medicine.” She eased herself slowly back onto the mattress in front of him, bringing the mug up to her lips again.

“Medicine?” Solas responded with a slight frown. It couldn’t be serious—if there was something seriously wrong, he was sure, she would have told him—but he didn’t like the sound of it all the same. “Are you alright? What is it for?”

She took another sip, regarding him a little too carefully over the brim of her mug. Then she reached over him placing the mug on the nightstand beside the bed before she sat back, crosslegged, looking him in the face. “For fertility control.”

His expression went blank in an instant. “Oh,” was all he could say in response. It made perfect sense, and there was no reason why it should upset him, but he fought to maintain a neutral expression on his face all the same. He supposed, in the back of his mind, he had always assumed she was doing something to prevent a pregnancy; they’d been carrying on, intimately, outside of the Fade for some time now. But somehow hearing her say it out loud had shifting something within him.

She looked uncomfortable; her eyebrows were pulled together, dimpling her brow in a way that only happened when she was anxious. “It’s nothing for you to worry about. I just don’t think that children….”

“No, you’re right.”

But his words had done little to soothe her. “I didn’t mean—not never,” she was quick to reassert, looking at him cautiously. There was a blush rising in her cheeks, and he could follow its path as it spread down her neck, across her collar. “Just not yet. One day, of course, I’d like—I mean, eventually—if you wanted to, maybe. Or not. I, ah…” and then she laughed, a mirthful sound, even if she was uneasy. “You know.”

“Vhenan,” he said, reaching out to her, placing his hand gently on top of hers. “I did not mean to embarrass you. I understand. There are many things that must come to pass before you could even consider such a decision. The least of which,” he said with a crooked smile, “is whether or not I’m fit to be any kind of parent.”

But she was looking at him strangely. Confusion and hesitance were written across her features, but he didn’t want to pry. This really wasn’t a conversation they should even be having—it certainly wasn’t one he wanted to have. He loved her. That was no longer a question for him, but a fact, one that he had to constantly negotiate around. It did not change what was to come, neither what he had to do nor the path that he was on. But it meant that he tended to avoid conversations like this as much as he could; he did not want to hurt her unnecessarily, or give her any more reason to believe there was a life for them beyond the present.

“Have I offended you?” he asked, but her lips were splitting in a grin.

She opened her mouth, paused, smiled; she brought her free hand over his, holding it between her own. “It doesn’t change anything. It’s not—it’s not a proposal. But…” and then she looked away from him, out the window, a laugh playing about her lips. Then she turned back to him.

“I can’t think of anyone who would be a better father than you. To some small one, someday, even if it isn’t mine.”

Solas could only look at her, stony faced. And he remembered, then, the other reason he avoided these conversations: it was as much for her benefit as his own. The expression on her face was almost too much to bear. It was both adoring and chastising, as if it had been foolish of him to suggest he’d be anything other than an excellent bond-mate. And it threatened to spin him out: thoughts of small, freckled cheeks; first steps; the beginning of a journey but no, no, he couldn’t, because the moment he started to entertain the thought he might start to want it, and that—that was different than accepting and reciprocating her love. The thought of losing her (which he would, inevitably) was already difficult enough without having to consider losing the family they might have shared.

His thoughts were far away and a hundred miles a minute, and as always, she could tell. She wrinkled her nose, clearly nervous she’d said something to upset him. “What is it?” she asked.

He forced the feelings away (down, somewhere dark and deep inside of him, to collect cobwebs, to never be revisited [small fingers smeared with paint] never to come to light) and smiled mischievously. “You’ve convinced me,” he said, his tone mock-serious.

“What?” she laughed, looking at him with wide eyes.

“You have. Come on, come over here,” he said, raising himself off the bed and reaching out for her, his hand on her waist. “Lasa ar’an felgara da’urbeshalin in ma,” he whispered against the skin of her cheek, and she gave a yelp.

They tussled; she was laughing, pretending to push him away and playfully kicking out her legs until he caught her mouth with his own. It was gentle, at first, but it did not stay that way; soon, she was shifting her weight beneath him, sighing in pleasure. He dipped his head below her jaw to taste her, pressing his lips to the pulse at her throat and following, downwards. His fingertips traced along the taut muscles of her stomach and between her legs, his middle finger dipping between her lips and circling her clitoris; she was already wet.

Her breath hitched at the touch; her head fell back against the mattress and her hips lifted to meet his hand. She gave a low moan. “I’ll be late,” she murmured.

The pads of his fingers were still tracing patterns on her clit, but he raised his head from the kisses he was literally across her breasts to deliver his most serious look. “Yes,” he said, his tone grave, forcing the playful smile off his face. “I believe that’s to be expected if you are… expecting.”

She gave a breathy laugh that melted into a choked cry at the lazy touch of his fingers dragging between her legs. “For the war council meeting, felasil,” she scolded lightly, but the scolding lost whatever power it may have held over him when her hips lifted off the bed.

“I can always stop,” he teased, freeing his hand and trailing it up her abdomen instead, fingers ghosting over a pert nipple before coming to rest on the mattress just above her shoulder.

“No,” she said, her voice full of command and thick with want. “They can wait.”

 

Translations:  
Lasa ar’an felgara da’urbeshalin in ma. | Let us plant a small seed inside of you. (euphemism; aka, Let’s get you pregnant.)  
Felasil | Fool.

Elvish translated and/or derived from Project Elvhen.


	5. First Thaw

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Varric is a good bro.

The thaw had begun.

The drafts that often howled through Skyhold, rattling doors on hinges and the frames of the glasswork, had quieted to a murmur. The blizzards that made the work of Leliana’s scouts more difficult (and the task of the trade caravans that supplied Skyhold with the necessary resources to sustain the Inquisition had become less perilous) had begun to abate. Sometimes, if you stood quietly on the ramparts, if there was no wind, the sun was enough to warm the body kindly.

It was the first day of Pluitanis, and with it, Wintersend. Skyhold was abuzz with activity. In the courtyard, some of Culler’s soldiers had cleared a space to hold their own mock-Tourney. Throughout the day, many of the members of the Inquisition had staged plays (both long and short, both tragic and comic, many of them celebrating the deeds of the Herald of Andraste) in all corners of the fortress: surprise skits on the battlements, larger theatrical productions being prepared for later in the evening. The kitchen was full of the sounds of clanging pots and simmering, knives chopping vegetables; a great feast would be held that night in honor of the Inquisitor.

But Inquisitor Lavellan herself did not seem inclined to participate. Varric had wandered amongst the contests and satires throughout the day and only caught sight of her but a few times; each time she looked increasingly harrowed.

Being of particular astuteness and possessing the emotional intellect that all great authors must, Varric was not surprised. Wintersend was, first and foremost, a celebration of the Maker. And much to the chagrin of Mother Giselle and Cassandra (whose pique Varric had observed with increasing delight) Inquisitor Lavellan was still firm in her stance that she had nothing to do with Andraste, that Providence had little to do with her accomplishments.

(It hardly mattered what Varric thought himself. In any case, he took far more joy in observing the reactions of others to the Inquisitor’s steadfast secular stance than he did trying to untangle his own mixed feelings about the thing.)

He had much wanted to speak with her. She’d only just returned from the Exalted Plains, and Varric was eager to ply her for descriptions of her exploits; stories that (no doubt) he would embellish and trim where necessary, for dramatic appeal. By now she probably knew this full well, but still she indulged him. Truth made up only a small part of a good story, after all. And even if he did tell the truth, he figured it would be just as unbelievable as whatever tale he spun in its place, if not more.

Failing to get her attention, he’d spent most of the day with Cole, explaining to him what little he knew of the history of the holiday, and the various amusements that were taking place around the fortress. “Why are they fighting? They might hurt one another, but they aren’t enemies!” he had exclaimed, full of innocent and boyish alarm when he caught sight of two of Cullen’s soldiers clumsily jousting in the courtyard.

“For glory, kid,” Varric had responded. “They do tournaments like this all over the continent on Wintersend. They’re… honoring the Maker with their strength and skill, or something.”

Cole turned to him, wide-eyed and horrified. “But, if he is a God, and a kind God, wouldn’t it honor him more to be kind?” To which Varric had no answer.

The day passed into night; tables had been brought into the courtyard for the Feast, but those closest to the Inquisitor had been brought into Skyhold’s throne room for a more intimate banquet. A long table had been set on the dais below the throne, with the Inquisitor in the center. It was laden with all kinds of food, the like of which would have usually been considered far too extravagant, but it was after all a holiday that honored the Maker, and the Inquisition—a religious order by design—felt obligated to give Wintersend the best celebration they could, without dangerously depleting their stocks. Roast birds and cured meats of every kind lined the table, along with all the kinds of root vegetables that were hardiest for winter. Josephine had even allowed the wine casks to be brought out.

Everyone filed in, and the room echoed with the sounds of laughter and joy—rare for that somber hall—as everyone took their seats. Varric had been quick enough to snag a seat by Inquisitor Lavellan’s side, with Dorian beside him; Lavellan had greeted him with a warm but tired grin.

“You’ve been hiding from me, Inquisitor,” he joked lightly.

“Have not,” she retorted, tilting her head in a gentle admonishment. “You’ll get all the details later, perhaps when this winds down, ideally over a game of Wicked Grace. Then I’ll tell you all you want to know about the walking corpses and the Dalish clan and the Dragon.”

“I know we’re in the Hall of Judgement, Inquisitor, but that’s cruel and unusual punishment, even for you,” he responded with a chuckle. “You can’t just drop little delicious morsels of information like that and expect me to behave! Leave me to my imagination and I’ll get carried away.”

She opened her mouth to reply to him, but at that precise moment, a hush fell over the company. Mother Giselle approached the dais, bowing lightly to the table before turning to the hall.

“Ladies and gentlemen, children of the Maker, today we are gathered to celebrate His holy light and benevolence, and the gift of deliverance he has given us in the form of our merciful Inquisitor, the Herald of Andraste.”

Varric raised an eyebrow, shooting a glance at the Inquisitor out of the corner of his eye. To the untrained eye her expression was neutral, but he had known her for long enough now that the line of her mouth was a little too set. Her hands had gripped tightly on the fabric of her pants beneath the table. By the severity of the reaction, he guessed she had not been informed that she’d have to sit through one of Giselle’s sermons before she got to enjoy her dinner.

“I will not speak long,” Giselle continued, “for it would seem disrespectful to keep all of you from the marvelous meal that the staff of Skyhold’s kitchen has prepared for us. For which we should give thanks,” she said, and began to clap her hands. The suggestion was met with a positively thunderous applause from the hall; a reflection that this was, in fact, the best meal many of them had enjoyed in a long while, and that all were eager to get to it.

“But as we give thanks for those who have worked so tirelessly to give us such a grand celebration, we should also take care that we do not keep the Maker out of our thoughts; for it is he who bids the earth bear fruit, and he provides. Therefore, before we all enjoy this meal on the occasion of the holiday in which we honor Him most highly, I humbly suggest we begin the meal with a moment of worship on his behalf.”

Inquisitor Lavellan paled. Mother Giselle opened her mouth.

“Shadows fall, and hope has fled,” and that was all it took; just like they had on the mountain, the crowd collected in the hall broke into song. The hall was filled with the sound of chairs being pushed back from tables as everyone rose to their feet in a wave. Varric stood, though he felt uneasy; the tension and discomfort (verging on rage) was practically palpable coming off the Inquisitor.

Beside him, Dorian was singing beautifully. “Steel your heart,” he practically crooned, if not out of genuine belief than from an opportunity to once again show off the self-proclaimed virtuosity of his voice. (In Varric’s opinion, it didn’t rival Curly’s, but that was another matter entirely.) On Varric’s opposite side, as the song continued, he saw the Inquisitor continue to stiffen.

But this was a holiday. Of all days, it should have been a chance for her to enjoy herself; even if Giselle didn’t know that, Varric thought in his heart that the Maker knew that to be true. He remembered Cole’s words in the Courtyard, and kindness. And, taking a deep breath and hoping he’d be forgiven for a little blasphemy (which certainly could not be the worst sin he’d committed in the eyes of the Maker throughout the duration of his life) he lifted his foot and brought it firmly down on Dorian’s.

The reaction was instantaneous; “the dawn will come” ended in an obscene squawk, and Dorian turned to him, eyes flashing daggers. Varric nodded his head ever so slightly to the Inquisitor, then opened his own mouth.

Varric was no stranger to song. Though he rarely raised his voice in praise of the Maker, he’d led more than a few pub songs in his life, and though he was no bard, he wasn’t half bad. But now, as he opened his mouth, “the night is long” ripped from his mouth in the most obscenely off-key and off-rhythm way he could possibly manage.

Dorian peered at the Inquisitor behind him, then took the hint. When he began to sang again, it was crass and offensive to the ears; he reached higher with his voice than he should have, and it cracked as he sang far above his range.

Soon, the whole table had taken the hint and, positioned as they were on the dais, they were in the best space for the hall to carry their voices. Varric couldn’t tell who exactly was singing (he imagined that both Cole and Solas were abstaining) but there were enough of them to send the song horrendously askew. Mother Giselle turned to give them all a look of reprimand, but that hardly helped; if anything, it encouraged them to sing even more badly and more loudly. Varric peered at the Inquisitor out of the corner of his eye; she was looking at him, and doing her best to stifle a laugh.

They hardly concluded the first chorus before Mother Giselle cut them off; apparently she thought it best to bring the song to a swift end rather than endure several more minutes of the offensive singing (and it was a stretch, to call the sounds being omitted by their table “singing.”) With a few more resigned words, she left the dais and took her seat, and the hall returned to their chairs, and the eating began in earnest.

When Varric sat, he found the Inquisitor staring at him, her mouth curled into a smile. It was so beautiful and thankful that if Varric was a more bashful man it might’ve been enough to make him blush.

“Thank you, Varric,” she said, quietly, reaching between them to take his hand and squeeze it lightly.

Varric feigned ignorance, reaching for his wine goblet. “For what, Inquisitor? I didn’t do anything.”

She looked at him for a long moment while he took a sip from his goblet. Dorian was right—it tasted like piss—but it was better than nothing, and helped lubricate his conscience after the stunt he just pulled.

“Okay,” she said, finally, her voice warm. “If that’s how you prefer it, storyteller.” Then she turned away from him, reaching for her own goblet.

“So what would you like to know about the Gamordan Stormrider?”


	6. her lips (crimson, stained with wine)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Solavellan, post-Crestwood.

If he did not do something, his resolve would crumble. It had been his castle once: his battlements, his tower, his balcony. How he longed to climb its heights and stare in private solitude at the vista beyond, the crowns of the mountains where once he cast the Veil over all things.

But it was her tower now, her balcony. The battlements, then, would have to do.

He had come into the tavern looking for Cole, unthinking, careless. He should have entered through the attic. Cole preferred to linger in the rafters, and it would have spared him the curious looks of the patrons of the Herald’s Rest when he’d come through the door—he had a reputation for being ascetic; it was unusual for him to make an appearance there.

(If only they knew what he had been like in his youth: a slut for opulence, a whore for luxury, draped in fine furs and the brightest of metals. Those days when he could enjoy the music of softly played lutes in the company of Mythal and her attendants, and hear not beneath the delicious plucked chords the screams of those who had far less, who sacrificed and toiled so that he could live such a life. He’d only been too eager to give it up.)

But worse than the stares of the tavern patrons was the sight that greeted him on the second floor: rounding the corner to reach the attic he saw her, side-by-side with that Dalish youngblood they’d recruited from the Exalted Plains, a goblet of wine held delicately in hand. He’d hardly taken any notice of the boy before; he wasn’t sure he’d ever learned his name.

But then, Thanduwen laughed, loudly, as she liked to; she threw her head back and revealed the white of her teeth, her lips (crimson, stained with wine) pulled back to reveal her smile. Something in the sound of her laugh like she was attempting to use her mirth to crowd something else out, some deep sorrow. And then she reached out, as if to brace herself against the force of her own laughter, and her hand touched the hand of the Dalish hunter, and Loranil, Solas thought, the blood rushing in his ears at even that light touch, the boy’s name is Loranil.

She had caught sight of him staring at the stairs, mouth open, fish-like; she’d simply stared at him through her laughter, through the next sip of her wine, as if daring him, (imploring him) to interrupt her.

He couldn’t.

Up the stairs, into the attic, past Cole and then, here: out onto the battlements, cold mountain air on his face, bracing. It helped.

The wound was still so fresh; he had left her at the waterfall and she had been both full of sorrow and full of anger, unsure which one she felt more keenly, vacillating between the two. In the ensuing days she had compromised: she was icy with him, curt. Hurt. He’d hurt her, he knew it, and he had no right now to do anything, to feel anything, at the sight of her enjoying the company of another man. In all likelihood it wasn’t even like that. Far more believable, anyway, that she’d sought his company for the reassurance of something familiar: the customs and tales of her people.

For a long time he had told himself that if she loved him enough, that would be sufficient. He would not abandon his duty, but she would fold herself, effortlessly, into it, as if she had always been a part of it. It was a beautiful lie that he had told himself for too long. He was alone. He had always been. Gone were the days when he could bury himself in her warm embrace and hide from that simple truth. It had been unkind of him to do so for as long as he had.

And if small touches and familiar conversation helped her to staunch the bleeding—lessen the pain that she felt at their parting—he had to give her that.


	7. Thaihyn Beneath the Stars

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Solavellan, mostly fluffy.

It was his fingertips that had reminded her, she said.

“They were so blue!” Smudged with ink from the careless way he’d been holding the quill. “They reminded me of late summer, foraging for blueberries. Its dangerous to wander too far from camp but when the blueberries are ripe even the children are allowed to go to the bushes and gather them. And I remembered last August, and the thicket we came through on our way back from Val Royeaux, and the berries I carried with me back to Haven.”

She was carrying a large ceramic jug; she eased it as gently as she could onto his desk in the rotunda, but even with care, the dull sound of the impact resounded through the chamber, accompanied by the audible sound of liquid sloshing.

Solas looked at her, then back to the jug, then back to her. “And they are contained in this jar?” he asked.

“No,” she said, lifting a finger to correct him. “Those, I crushed to make a summer wine. Unfortunately the bottle was abandoned when Haven burned down. This,” she said, reaching out and patting the curve of the jug fondly, “is thaihyn.”

Thaihyn, as it turned out, was precisely what it sounded like. Several handfuls of ripe, forest berries had been left overnight to soak in the jug, full to the bring with wine she’d stolen out of the cellars.

They’d absconded to the Mage Tower to look at the stars.

The fruit wine loosened her tongue. Usually, she was the listener. She’d needle him, implore him for stories of his journeys. Now, with the constellations overhead and their mouths sweet, she spoke of all the things she loved, though she did not use that word.

In all the time since she’d woke in Haven he’d seen her harden herself, shield herself with cynicism. He had no doubt that it was genuine. He was the last person who needed convincing of the ways in which this world had gone awry. But now she spoke not of Templars or alienages, but the blush of wildflowers in the first days of summer in the fields of the Free Marches. She spoke of the music of the hoofbeats of her clan’s halla, and ceramic pots of vegetables left to ferment in the ground through the winter, the surprise of their pungent and acidic smells come spring. She spoke of the Dalish High Holidays, and then the holidays they’d held in Skyhold—the precious few celebrations—and she reminisced of the dancing and the singing, the warmth of having everyone together and being able to put out of mind (if even for the briefest time) the burden that was upon her.

She saw so much, her eyes so keen. And she held so much of it within her, carried. It was this—the burden of memory—that had made him perceive her older than her years when they’d first met. For the life of him, Solas could not figure out how she had not seen him, yet, for what he was: ancient and tired, a liar and a thief.

Suddenly he no longer wished to listen.

Thanduwen was mid-sentence, some rambling story about Cole and one of the harts giving birth in the stable, unabashedly sticking her hands full into the jar to pluck out pieces of wine-soaked fruit. The rich and sticky liquid ran down her fingers and along her wrist. Without a word of warning, he reached out and took her arm and licked the juice from her flesh. Her eyes widened as he traced a path along her veins, sucking her fingers into his mouth and staring into her face as her expression transformed from one of surprise to desire.

He pressed a kiss to her palm, murmured against it: “The hatch to the tower is bolted shut?”

When she responded, her voice was breathless: “I sealed it as soon as we came up here.”

He hummed something throaty, his lips vibrating against her palm before he began to plant a line of kisses along her arm, sowing a path from wrist to elbow to shoulder.

“Very good, vhenan,” he breathed against her collarbone, the notch below her ear. “I crave a taste more rare than fruit wine, and I am not keen to share.”


	8. But That Glittering Seed

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Solas struggles to keep his “ill-considered” kiss with the Inquisitor out of his mind while she is away from Skyhold.  
> Solas x Lavellan | Solas POV | SFW

It had been nearly a week since the Inquisitor had left for Crestwood, and still, in spite of with her absent from the halls of Skyhold (not here to peek her head ‘round the rotunda door and inspect his progress on the murals, or lure him out of doors for early morning walks in brisk dawn) he could not stop thinking about the kiss.

When the thoughts surfaced, he did his best to push them, gently, out of his mind. An old trick of mindfulness: observing the thought, noting its presence, then letting it go, simply, without judgement or self-deprecation. That last part was, for him, especially difficult, but the strategy served him well. Many centuries of practice had made him adept at self-discipline.

But no matter how many times he pushed the thoughts away, they always returned.

The smallest of things would bring her to mind. Touching his hand (pigment stained) to his chin as he contemplated the frescoes, forefinger tapping out a slow and deliberate rhythm at the corner of his mouth—and that faintest touch (from his own hand!) leading to sudden and vivid remembrances of a different touch, another’s touch, a brush of lips delivered to that exact spot. And before he knew what he was doing he was once more consumed by the memory of that ill-considered kiss, the kiss that he had encouraged, deepened.

It had been a long time, since he had been touched like that. 

And if he was honest with himself (which he rarely was, always the trickster, so skilled in deception even  _he_  could not tell his own defenses from self-sabotage) he would acknowledge that it had not been entirely unexpected. That it had, perhaps, been  _encouraged_  long before he pulled her closer with insistent grips on hips and pressed their mouths together again. 

He had not been blind to the way she looked at him, though perhaps she had thought he was. Even in the beginning, when they had fought—when she had been  _furious_ , radiant in her defiance of him—she had stared. At his hands, at his forearms, into his eyes—always boldly, often unashamed, her intent clear. She had begun this flirtation, but he had flirted back, because in those early days, she had also been so inclined to talk about _flight_. Of running. Away from Haven, Cassandra, the Templar Commander, the Chantry, and into the night, and he knew she was capable of it, this slippery young thing with his mark upon her hand—and  _he could not have that_. 

She wanted so desperately to be home; he had needed to give her a reason to stay. And for the sake of his plan—the awakening of the old artifacts, and the reclamation of the orb—he needed her to  _trust_  him. 

He had seduced her with story to make her stay. And before the kiss, he had felt neither guilt nor remorse. After all, he reasoned, his own advances had not been entirely insincere. He enjoyed the cleverness of their occasional flirtations: the dance of word, and light touch. And somewhere along the twists and turns of that delicate dance he had—perhaps, and against what he had expected—grown fond of her, for her curiosity, her empathy, her wit. More fond of her, anyway, than any of the others he had encountered in this land of living dead, far from what it should have been and far too similar to the world he had decimated to make way for it. Of course, fondness alone did not make her _real_. One could be similarly fond of a cherished family pet.

But now—now all of that seemed terribly cruel. And also tremendously false.

[ _How she had cherished, clutched, held him accountable for that brief moment of affection during the destruction of Haven, chaste lips pressed to her brow caked with dried blood and sweat—what he had thought was goodbye. How he had practically trembled before that reckoning, to have been caught, found out in that moment of weakness. How the drums of Vengeance and War had quieted within him—silenced, utterly, for the first time since he had woken from uthenara—when she had pressed her lips to his in the Fade. Surprised at her boldness. Startled to be touched so tenderly. Stunned at the hunger that had swelled like a choir within him, and at his inability to repress it, devoted in an instant to the pursuit of her taste, her warmth. All of these things making clear that she was no “pet,” a spirit with a will of her own, a trickster in her own right: like a whisper, soft but insistent, wearing him away like the ocean carves a shore, “I’m real, I’m real,” until without realizing it was even happening, he had come to believe in her._

_{The greatest of his sins. His b(igg)est mistake. At once, a beginning and an end: this terrible confluence of things that he had been cruel and foolish enough not to dismiss right from the start.}_

_How long it had taken him to collect himself, to pull out of that kiss, to break the surface: too long. Waking, terrified, at his own lack of restraint, how willingly he had surrendered to her kiss, and the bright and radiant many-petaled thing that he was too frightened to name, blossoming within him when he had held her in his arms_.]

It would be far simpler, and far kinder in the long run, to deny her, when she returned. There were a myriad of good reasons to choose from to explain why he was not willing to continue their budding affair, each of which ( _with her grace, her humility_ ) he had no doubt she would accept. 

( _But that glittering seed, germinating, breaking the soil, stretching towards the light—those feelings that had flowered at the press of her lips—chanting, quietly,_  no, no.)

That joy he had felt, walking with her the morning after, frozen dew glimmering on the branches of the naked trees and needled pines! The ease with which he could smile with her, the ease with which she made him laugh (the pleasure she never bothered to hide, when she brought a chuckled to his lips.)

_The effervescent feeling of mirth, after so long…._

It was thoughts like these that he tried, in vain, to push away, as he attended to the walls of the rotunda. And each time he thought of her ( _the freckles on her cheeks, the soft brush of her callused fingers on his jaw_ ) he tarried a little longer inside the thought before he pushed it, gently, away….


	9. Bewildered

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lavellan is unsure what to make of Solas during the journey to the Temple of Sacred Ashes.  
> Solas, Lavellan (pre-romance) | Lavellan POV | SFW

She is no athlete, no headstrong warrior; but she is present in her body, and she knows how to move it, how to understand what it tells her, how to trust the sure step of her feet. She knows how to move with precision, if not strength.

But in the north, in the Free Marches, it had rarely gotten cold enough for the water to freeze over. When it did it was usually unwise to walk more than but a few steps on the ice’s surface out onto the water, even on the shallowest of ponds. In the mountains (where she woke, after days spent dreaming, tossing)  the waters of the rivers and streams were so solid that one could cross their width without the ice so much as shifting underfoot. She could not say how thick the ice was, but when she stepped out upon it, it was remarkably still.

And slippery.

Her boots were not suited to this terrain. When the shades came upon them, it was difficult to spell cast and mind her balance at the same time. Her own momentum sabotaged her; as she swung her staff to send a violent bolt of energy across the river, she slid in the wake of the movement, the space between her feet widening as she slipped out of her stance. 

It was not long before one of the demons had closed in on her. She could not flee; she feared if she did, she would only lose her footing and fall flat on the ice, limbs splayed and bruised, utterly at the creature’s mercy. In her panic, she let loose a blast of fire from the end of her staff.

The spell met its mark. But the recoil of it, the energy, sent her reeling backwards in panic. Her feet were slipping out from under her. She wheeled her arm, desperately trying to regain her balance—the wisp was not far, and advancing—

Something sharp and strangely shaped struck her squarely between her shoulders, pushing her none too gently back onto her feet. It nearly knocked the breath from her lungs—the blow would no doubt leave a mark, spreading purple and blue from where it had connected. But she was upright. Her instincts took over; with another crackling blast of lightning from her staff, the wisp dissipated before her.

She turned, bewildered, to see what had set her back on her feet. Behind her, the bald, unmarked elf—Solas, he’d called himself—was still looking at her, a faintly irritated expression on his face. But it was a look she’d seen countless times before in her youth: the look of a disgruntled elder who hid, behind his scorn, an affection, reminded of his own youthful follies, that spiritedness and lack of grace. A practiced patience learned only through time.

He must have hit her with his staff, to right her before she fell. And despite the lingering soreness in her back, she was grateful as she was irritated; the touch of his staff certainly hurt less than whatever bruises she’d have gained by falling gracelessly onto the ice. Still, it perturbed her. 

Who was this strange elf, who had watched over her while she slept, who seemed so similar to the elders of her Clan who had raised her?


	10. Vacivity—The Lonely Quiet

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lavellan tries to come to terms with the loss of her arm and with it, the anchor.  
> Solas x Lavellan | Lavellan POV | SFW

The silence was unbearable.

It had been months since the Exalted Council. She had remained—longer than she would have liked—in Orlais, in Val Royeaux, aiding with the transition as the Inquisition was absorbed into the Chantry as Divine Victoria’s honor guard. In that time, she often forgot about the loss of her limb. She would raise her left hand to push a strand of dark hair out of her face, or scratch an itch, or reach for a book—only to discover, all over again, that she had lost the arm some time ago.

She never forgot the loss of the anchor.

How the two could coexist, she did not know; they seemed at odds with one another. But what she did know was that the she felt the anchor’s absence far more keenly. 

She knew something was wrong right from the beginning, though she could not put her finger on it. Perhaps that was to be expected. In the excruciating hours she’d spent, cloistered in the dark—curtains, drawn shut—of her rooms in the Winter Palace, lying awake as she recovered, preparing for her final appearance before the Exalted Council, she had much on her mind. (Too much, and far too easy to fall into despair; the fate of her Inquisition hanging in the balance, and the terror that she would have to confront—the end of the world—and still with all of that her thoughts kept wandering back to  _him_ , not as he was but as he had been: draped not in shining armor and furs but in simple linens and wraps. Still difficult to reconcile the two images, so different they were from one another, although his eyes had been the same, clouded with the same grief.) And through all of that, a blossoming anxiety: something changed, amiss.

It was not until the Council had ended that she realized what it was. After many of the others had left (Dorian back to Tevinter, Varric to Kirkwall, all her friends so far-flung) when she was on her own that she discovered, with a surprise, the source of that queasy, unnerving feeling. 

When she was on her own, alone with her thoughts, lying awake at night (torn between apprehension and anticipation, knowing she would enter the Fade,  _find him_ ) it was far, far too silent.

She had grown so used to it she had stopped taking notice of it, but now that it was gone, she remembered: the anchor never just an anchor, not hers though it was irrefutably a part of her, and how (though she had reassured Solas that it hadn’t) it had  _changed_  her. Not in ways that other would notice, not her compassion or her values. But in the way the anchor sang to her. Whispers in languages so ancient she could not understand the words, though she could feel their meaning coursing through her. It was like the lyrium song, but different; it sang of power and dead empires and terrible purpose. 

That ghastly sound had brought her no comfort. In the beginning it had haunted her mercilessly; it had been difficult to sleep. But she had adjusted to it until it had become a part of her, folded into her until she no longer took notice of it. She knew not where the voices came from—whether they were part of the anchor itself, or slipping through the thin Veil that the anchor held such power over—but they always swelled to a thunderous chorus when she wielded the mark to seal a rift.

And now, they were gone. And though she had not been fond of them, she had grown accustomed to them.

In the aftermath the silence was deafening, a reminder of how much she’d lost already: her Inquisition, her power, her heart.

Sometimes, in the silence, she wept; more to fill the space with sound (to cover up that resounding, deafening absence) than out of genuine sorrow, though, by now, she had plenty to weep for.  


	11. He should have burned the clothes a long time ago.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Post trespasser, Solas x Lavellan | Solas POV | SFW/angst

He should have burned the clothes a long, long time ago.

The temptations to abandon his path (his fate [his  _penance_ ]) had been many and varied, and he had resisted them all. Even when his will—his commitment—had been tested, when he had been offered that which was chief among his desires, he had not strayed. He was disciplined. He was, in spite of ( _because of_ ) the things he had discovered in his scant years of Wakening, devoted to his cause.

So why, then, had he not burned, buried, abandoned the clothes, these trappings of an old life that was less of a life and more of a lie?

Actor’s clothes, is what they were. Donned to sell a falsehood, to create an illusion, to perform an act of trickery. (After all, was that not what he was, what they called him—a trickster?)

And they were poor clothes, too: stitched by his own hand, then improved, then fixed, then patched, then patched again. (He had never excelled at  _mending_ , always worsening the hole in his tunic that he endeavored to fix.) The tunic was worn, elbows threadbare, permanently stained in places (blood, mud, sweat) with edges fraying and worn. The shorts were hardly in any better condition. Only the reverently coiled ribbon of his old foot wraps were still anything close to serviceable, but they too were worn.

Now, he wore armor of the brightest bronze, lacquered and adorned, shining in the light. And these beggars rags, he’d secreted away to a remote corner of the crossroads, untravelled by his agents, left folded neatly on an old altar where he would have no further use for them.

So why had he kept them?

( _Because She had loved the man who wore them, the man who was not him, the man who was a falsehood_.)

( _“Give me your foot,” she’d cajoled, one night, back at camp; he’d been uncertain at first but then given his consent, and she’d lifted his leg gently by the heel of his foot, and brought his calf down to rest over her thigh—carefully eased the ribbons of leather out of their knots and peeled them back, unwrapping, [carefully] inch by inch the flesh of his foot [bruised, abused after the hiking they had done that day, the ground too treacherous to go by hart] and looked at it with kindness even with the dirt caked between his toes, unbraiding the ribbons of leather until they were loose up past his ankle, and looking at him with a grin as she worked her hands against his foot, pressing her thumbs against the sole, massaging into the arch there—he’d actually thrown his head back in relief, how that firm and exacting touch had unspooled him, and she’d only laughed, pressing harder—“Why won’t you wear shoes?”_ )

The recollection twisted his face into an ugly expression: mouth a violent gash of a line, eyebrows drawn tightly over his brown and trembling, eyes narrowed, nostrils flared. 

He had not strayed. But the temptations had lingered. And those clothes were a token of sentimentality he could no longer afford, a brilliant, shining lure in dark and murky waters, a danger. He could not simply pull that worn tunic over his head and become someone else, return to that lie. 

He’d shattered it a long time ago. 

He gave an ugly cry of frustration—a grunt, a half-sob—then with a violent wrenching motion of his arm pulled the energy from the fade (so close, here) and twisted it, folded it around the old garments until they were wreathed in flame and burning before him on the old, cracked altar.

They turn to ash; the wind would scatter the ash; the rain would wash away what soot still licked the altar’s surface after the ash dispersed. And then there would be nothing. No more tokens, no more treasured soft things to stroke or drift to in loneliness.


	12. The Pups of Fen'Harel

The pace of his steady breathing was like a single strand of bright, white light: a rope in the darkness. He held it gently, followed it deeper into mindfulness, grounded by the rhythm of his lungs, expanding and contracting, and the beat of his heart.

(The beat of  _three_ hearts, he reminded himself; despite his discipline, the years he had spent in meditation and contemplation, he could not stifle the grin that lifted the corners of his mouth at that thought. A gentle breeze tickled him, but he pushed the sensation away, out of mind, clearing the way for—)

“Papae? Papae?  _Father_!”

Solas opened his eyes, turned his head to the insistent voice behind him. For a boy of only ten years, Nehnis had such presence, always commanding the attention of those around him. Thanduwen said this was typical in first-born children, but it never failed to astound him (all the more when it sometimes wearied him): even among strangers the child was so confident in his charm and wit, wielding both with far more precision than Solas would have thought possible.

(When he was older—and here Solas had to fight back another smile, both out of pride and surrender—when he reached his adolescence, Nehnis would be just like Solas himself had been: cocky and hot-blooded, chasing romance and adrenaline. It was a future he looked towards with curiosity and amusement—and no small measure of dread.)

“What is it, Nehnis?” he asked, unfolding his hands from where they had been cupped together in front of his navel, bringing his palms to rest on his knees.

“The woods here are very lovely, aren’t they, Papae?”

Solas raised an eyebrow at his son, the smile still lingering about his lips. “They are indeed, my son. Now focus on your breathing.”

Solas closed his eyes again, trying to submerge himself back into that serene place, counting his breaths, drawing them out—

Beside him, Nehnis gave an exaggerated sigh. “But don’t you hear all the birds, Papae? Do you think there are any hawks here? Or ravens, like in Mamae’s stories?”

“Hush, Nehnis!” a small voice said. “Papae is meditating! You are bothering him!”

Solas grinned again, both at the chastisement his younger son gave to his elder, and at the raspberry that Nehnis blew in response. He cracked open his eyes and peered back at his sons. 

Nehnis had abandoned his meditative stance, and was lying splayed on the ground beside him, face turned up towards the canopy of trees above them. Past him, he could see his youngest son, Eolas, with a scowl still lingering on his features. He looked absurd: his tiny child-like features, pinched, set in an expression far too serious for his age. 

Nehnis and Eolas: like night and day. Where Nehnis was bold and adventurous, Eolas was cautious, measured; easily the more well-behaved of the two of them, until he got a question in his head he couldn’t quite wrap his mind around.

He loved them both almost more than he could bear; and even now, with Nehnis misbehaving, he felt his love for them swelling in his chest as if it was threatening to escape from him, overwhelm him. It was entirely uncalled for. Solas tried (often, failed) to bring his sons to meditate with him every morning, and they were no more or less precious and precocious on this particular day than on any other. But it had been the same way when their mother was pregnant with Eolas. Now, as she entered the last few months of her third pregnancy, he felt that same sentimentality returning to him. 

The baby would change everything. He knew this. And most of that change, he knew, would be good. But some of it would be difficult—mostly, he suspected, for his sons, who (inevitably) he would be able to spend less time with, lavish less attention upon, once the third child came into their family. 

It was making him soft; lenient, when he should have insisted Nehnis finish the meditation, even if he only sat in silence, contemplating the birds and (maybe, if Solas guided him) paying some measure of attention to his breathing.

“Nehnis,” Solas said, his voice full of practiced patience. “Would you like to go look for birds?”

Immediately Nehnis sat up, planting his hands on the ground and leaning towards his father, giving him his most charming face: full of unbridled excitement. “Oh, Papae, can I?”

“Yes. But take your brother with you.”

Nehnis gave another exaggerated sigh, before acquiescing. “Fine. Come on, Eolas.”

Eolas was still sitting in his meditative stance, his back perfectly straight, his knees folded beneath him. He gave his father one of those _looks_ : as though he had betrayed him by the suggestion that he should go play with his older brother.

Their mother kept hoping that as time went on, they would become closer. She still cherished the close bond she shared with her own brother. But five years, at that age, was a long time. Occasionally, Solas regretted waiting so long to have their second child; he wished he had given Nehnis a sibling closer in age. But when Nehnis had been young they had been so stunned by him, enraptured by him, and Solas had been reluctant to bring another child into their lives. He knew it was silly, now, but at the time he had loved his first born so dearly he had been frightened he would not be able to love their second with the same depth.

(He had been staggeringly, stupendously wrong; but it certainly wasn’t the first time that had happened.)

“Go on,” Solas said, gently. “I will find you in a little while.” Then, as Eolas stood up in a huff to follow his brother, “Wait!”

Eolas turned back, Solas beckoned him closer until the small child was standing beside him. Solas placed his hand on the back of his son’s neck, gently guided his head closer and kissed him gently on his brow.

“Ar lath ma, da’vun,” Solas said, quietly. 

“Eolas! Come  _on_!” came the impatient cry of his brother behind him in the woods.

Solas shook his head. Then he looked up into Eolas’ face. “Be careful,” he said, sternly. “Look after your brother.”

“I will,” Eolas said, dutifully. There wasn’t a chance in hell that Nehnis would listen to him, but if Eolas thought he was being sent along to supervise, he’d participate more willingly in the bird-watching (or stone collecting, or whatever fancy that took Nehnis at the time).

Solas listened to their young voices fade into the distance until even his perceptive hearing could make out their voices. Then, sighing gently and without opening his eyes, “You can come out, now, Vigilance.”

Without the slightest hesitation, the spirit rose from the bush in which it had been concealing itself. Vigilance shimmered blue in the early morning air; it was hard to say if the spirit was disappointed, or pleased at being discovered. As if the sudden appearance were nothing, he said in a deferential tone, “On dheam, ha’hren.”

The spirit had followed them across the continent for the past few months, appearing not long after they had left their seasonal stay with Clan Lavellan. All of the spirits, of course, knew of Fen’Harel, and his Lady who had thwarted him, but few had become quite so attached to his offspring as Vigilance. 

(Nehnis, once, had escaped Vigilance’s attention and paraded off into the woods without his parents knowing. The boy was found quickly, but Vigilance had been so surprised and ashamed that he’d lost track of him that he’d taken it upon himself to shadow Nehnis almost perpetually, as if daring the boy to escape his watchful gaze again. His wife was still not completely convinced that having a spirit of Vigilance mind the children was the best idea, but when they had stayed with Clan Lavellan, Nehnis and Eolas had much more freedom: with a whole Clan to watch them, they were permitted more independence. Now that their family had begun their seasonal sojourn on their own, even she had to admit that it was comforting to have someone else around to mind the children, even if they were a noncorporeal entity.)

“Will you keep an eye on them?” Solas asked Vigilance, his eyes still closed as he tried to sink back into mindfulness.

“Sathem lasa halani, ha’hren. You know how I adore your little puplings,” Vigilance responded. He could feel the energy of the spirit pass him, following the direction in which his sons had run off. “No harm will come to the litter of Fen’Harel on my watch, many though the pups may be… their number increasing with each season…”

“Vigilance,” Solas said in a sharp tone.

“San, ha’hren. I guard over the puplings until ha’hren has finished his morning exercises. I will not permit them to wander far.”

  
  
Ar lath ma, da’vun. | I love you, little sun.   
On dheam, ha’hren. | Good morning, ha’hren.  
Sathem lasa halani, ha’hren. |  Pleased to help, ha’hren.


	13. Eager to Rise

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dad!Solas. Solas watching the sunrise with his second born son.

“Papae! Papae!”

Wrenched abruptly out of the Fade by the voice of his youngest—the sound never failed to rouse him. But when his eyes cracked open the world was still dark. He could make out his son’s shape by the void his small head and shoulders made against the canopy of brilliant stars.

“What is it, Eolas?”

“It is happening, Papae!”

That was a matter better left to debate, and not with his four year old son. Solas blinked away the sleep from his eyes, looked up at the stars. By their position in the sky he could tell it was still another hour before dawn would crack the sky.

Eolas was early.

“Are you sure, da’vun?” he asked, trying to keep the weariness out of his voice. “It is still very dark.”

By the twisting shape of his sons’ silhouette, he could tell the boy was turning in place nervously.

“I thought we could watch from the inortadurgen.”

Out of the corner of his eye, in the dark, he could see his wife beside him, looking at him, both amused and expectant; they both already knew he would be getting out of bed.

“San, da’vun,” Solas said, and pushed himself into a sitting position. “Are you ready to leave? Do you have your shoes?”

Eolas nodded seriously. “And Fen’telban, to protect us in the dark.” (Fen’telban was the stuffed wolf Eolas’ mother had sewn him out of scrap wool six months before, in the same fashion that her Dalish mother had sewn a similar toy for her; she had, at the time, bemoaned her woefully inadequate sewing skill. But it had made no difference to their son, who carried the toy with him wherever he went.)

“San,” Solas repeated, and stood, feeling with his feet in the dark for his own shoes (not always worn, but necessary protection for walking such a distance through the woods in the dead of night.)

“Darir.” Let’s go.

 

It had not been the first time, nor would it be the last, that they had been accosted on the road. For the most part, the changes in their appearance protected them from being recognized: in the decades since the Veil had fallen, both he and his vhenan had grown their hair long for that specific purpose. With the strife ended, they had wished to live a life of peace, and (relative) anonymity. And it usually worked.

Except for when it didn’t. And on this particular occasion, they had been in the company of their sons.

“The gall of this harellan, to walk in peace across the earth he was so quick to scorch! If he had his way, we would have no earth, no sky, no rising sun!”

Eolas had tears in his eyes by the time his mother guided him away from the heckler. (He had far worse to say to Solas, and more, but fortunately, his youngest son had been out of earshot for the most of it; his eldest, Nehnis, had stood by his side—arms crossed, scowling, doing his best at the age of nine to look intimidating in front of this man who dared threaten his father—utterly unaffected by the man’s words.)

But the damage had been done. For Eolas was still of a tender age. And despite their best attempts to explain to him what had happened (Why did that man call Papae a harellan? Because he was a rebel, my dear son, and unafraid to stand for what he thought was right at the time. Why did he hate Papae so much? Because some people, my son, do not take too kindly to change.) the damage had already been done. Eolas had been left with the fear that the stars could be plucked from their orbit; that one day, the sun might fail. And (somehow, inexplicably, sweetly) he also believed that his Papae had the power to set it right: to command the very sun to rise.

In the weeks that followed he had woken Solas just before dawn with surprising regularity, and they had watched the sun rise together before crawling back into bed for a few more hours of precious sleep, Eolas curled between his parents. It was difficult to tell how much his fear had lessened. Secretly, Solas suspected that his son continued to wake him at that early hour simply for the pleasure of having his attention and his company, undivided, for once, between him and his brother.

And he would not begrudge Eolas that. Taxing though it could be at times to rise so early, he too enjoyed the precious time with his secondborn.

By the time they reached the Abyssal Rift (what Eolas had called the inortadurgen, the deep vale, for he knew not, and would never know, the name it had when it had spat forth hordes of Darkspawn) the pink light of dawn was just touching the eastern sky.

It was windy of the shelf that led to the canyon’s edge; it blew through Eolas’ loose shirt. Like the sails of an aravel, his mother might have said. Had said, so many times, that the phrase was conjured up, now, even without her around to say it; even in her absence. The boy’s sleeping linens the same sea-blue as the sails of the aravels of her Clan, dyed in the same pigments. As if the wind might sweep him up and carry him off, as if that sweet little child could fly….

Though he was still several many from the edge, Solas rushed up behind him and scooped Eolas into his arms. “Not so fast, da’vun,” he chided, gently. Then in one, smooth movement, Solas crossed his legs and sat, crosslegged, his son cradled in the protective nest of his limbs.

Ahh, how he wished he could protect them better, he thought, as the sky was lightening and snuffing out the stars. He could not blame the wanderer for what he had shouted; Solas had accepted his sins long ago, and did not begrudge people what resentment and anger they still held for him, even all these years later. He regretted, however, that it had begun to affect his sons. He wished they could be spared the pain of their father’s mistakes.

(How would he ever tell them? How could he? For now, the story they would stick to while their children were young, while they could get away with it: a simple and fairytale version of events. Papae had wanted to change the world. Mamae had wanted to save it as it was. They had met somewhere in the middle.)

But as he held his secondborn in his arms, he felt no tense muscles or knots, the signs of pain and anxiety manifesting in the body. Eolas was content as his arms as the pink orb of the sun broke the line of the horizon and flooded the world with light. Father and son watched in serene silence as what once had been the Abyssal Reach was touched with the first orange rays of dawn, illuminating each of its crags and ridges, now here and there dotted with scraggly and hardy vegetation—signs of life returning to this Blighted land. And the light, it moved so quickly, dancing over rock faces, ever advancing—

“It’s so fast,” Eolas has said, his voice sleepy and quiet, watching the light cut shadows across the face of the canyon.

Solas smiled, pulled his son tighter against his chest, dipped his head down to press a soft kiss against his temple.

“It was waiting for us, da’vun—and now it is eager to rise.”

translations courtesy of Project Elvhen:  
inortadurgen | deep vale, valley, place between mountains.  
san | “okay”  
da’vun | little sun  
darir | let’s go


	14. an impossible spring

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> an impossible spring  
> Solas x Lavellan, NSFW  
> for DWC on Tumblr

Her head is again on his shoulder, the muscles of his chest. He wishes he could feel the press of her warm cheek against his bare skin; alas, it is too cold for that, even here in the desert.

Perhaps, in the spring… (but he does not like to think this way, in the future tense. The inevitability of  _departure_ , only the timing of it variable. And he closes off the thoughts of spring like shutting a door in his mind.)

This is how it is, now, since that night in the Deauvin Flats when he said, _I am yours_ : they share a tent. Their affection conspires with the weather to bring them together at night. It is, after all, winter. Even here. He wraps his arm around her shoulders and she curls the warmth of her body against his. For awhile, before they drift to sleep, they may touch one another; they are still slightly in awe of one another, and the bodies they possess. In the privacy of the Fade, he presses his mouth to her neck, her breast, the wetness between her legs.

The feeling is still fresh and new. At his request they have not yet made love, though they seize every opportunity for a stolen kiss or a caress.

Blackwall is remarkably patient with them.

And he is becoming very good—too good—at ignoring what it all means. That imminent departure. Whether or not they will be together long enough to see spring, summer. Another fall.

So wrapped up in his thoughts of not-spring, her words take him by surprise. “I wish I had met you when you were young,” she says, quietly, and she can feel the swing of her jaw against his shoulder as she murmurs the words.

He hums. He had been trying to hide from who he was, and how easily she has conjured the ghost of his youth into this tent with them. He tries not to think of the things that happened to him that _made_  him. Instead, he remembers his vanity, from the time before the illusions shattered. Long hair, delicate silks, fine jewels. Robes embroidered with strands of gold. “It is better that you did not,  _vhenan_. You would not have liked me.”

“Why not?” Her voice is inquisitive, soft, pitched higher than usual; she is making her voice small. She knows she does not like to talk about before—at least, not when it pertains to himself. She is curious how much he will divulge before he retreats.

 _But_ , he thinks,  _this I can share_.

“I was arrogant,” he says, simply. “Quick to quarrel, less quick to back down. I thought I knew everything.” His hand is on her shoulder; he traces circles with his fingertips. “I had no idea how small the sum of my knowledge really was.”

She raises herself up to better look at him, leaning on an elbow to peer into his face. “You are right,” she says, and she is smiling: her nose wrinkled. “I probably would not have liked you.” Then she raises a hand to his face. His eyelids droop at the gentle touch of her fingers running along his cheekbones, his jaw. “But it might have been marvelous, too. Always at odds with one another—how many fights would you have picked with me? Unable to admit when you were wrong. And then growing together, slowly, over time. How well we would know one another.”

He takes her hand in his, pulls it away from his face. “Do you feel as though you do not know me?” he asks her, his voice quiet. “Does my unwillingness to talk about my past make us strangers to one another?”

She sighs, diverts her eyes to the ground. “I didn’t mean to accuse you of anything, Solas,” she murmurs. Looks at him again, brows knitted in apology. “ _Ar lath_ , even with the secrets you keep. Like the pain you carry—no, don’t deny it. It is too plain to me now. I don’t need to know what it is. I won’t ask you for what you wouldn’t give me freely. I just…” and she wiggles her hand free of his, plays with their fingers. Matches the tips of hers to each of his, spreading their fingers apart, drawing them together. “The notion is that, if we had known each other since we were young, I might have saved you from that pain. That burden.”

He is quiet—he does not know what to say to that. The truth is, there would have been no growing together. By the time he came to be the man she now loves—wise, responsible, rebellious—it would have already been too late for them. It was the very pain she speaks of that made him wise. It made him equally incapable of love, as it forged him. 

“I know it is a silly thing to say,” she says after a time, releasing his hand. “Some pain we can’t be freed from.”

He reaches out, takes her hand back in his. Turns her face back to him so that he can look her in the eye. “It is not silly.”

She wishes to spare him from pain. She does not know—not yet (he hopes, not ever)—that she will likely prove to be the greatest source of it.

And she knows she has crossed a line. She has put him in that place of introspection and silence which she hates. 

It is still early winter. They have not yet made love. She is waiting for him to be ready.

“Take a walk with me,” she says, spontaneously. It is the dead of night. There departure goes unnoticed and she guides him to the Oasis not far from their camp. 

Out of earshot of the others, she presses him against one of the pillars of a once-Temple; they kiss. The waters of the pool are warm—an impossible spring—heated from beneath the surface by some unknown force. There is an urgency to the way she kisses him, now. She has recognized her mistake. She is trying to take the words back. 

Or, at least, obliterate the evidence of them.

Her hands are nimble at the drawstrings of his breeches. “Thanduwen, they can see us,” he warns, looking at the fire of the Inquisition camp as she pulls the band down his waist, as she presses kisses against the tendons of his throat. “They aren’t looking, yet, but if they did, they would find us.”

“Well then, _Solas_ , do not call their attention.” And she sinks to her knees.

The air is cold with the chill of winter, but the water is warm. It is the first time she has put her mouth on him while they are awake. The others sleep too nearby to attempt such intimacy in their tents. They are not, after all, entirely shameless. Though tonight she seems unconcerned with such proximity.

She is penitent. She has recognized her mistake. When she first puts her mouth on him outside the Fade, it is an act of contrition.

He cannot bring himself to stop her—he does not want her to, though he feels he should. Too twisted up with lies and guilt to accept the pleasure she wishes to give him. As if to say,  _I did not mean to hurt you with my mouth; it has other uses, too._

Her tongue is firm against the underside of his cock; his thighs tremble against her shoulders. 

When her nose nestles into the hair of his groin and the head of his cock is flush with the back of her throat—tightening—his feet slip in the silt, the clay beneath the surface of the pool.

In the Fade, he grunts and groans, appreciative, but she has said,  _do not call their attention_. Instead, here—the rushing of the water—he shudders when he comes, his breath a trembling hiss.

She has never tasted it before. Not really—not like this. As she licks the last of his spend from him, he turns his eyes upwards, to the rock arch above, to the stars. They are too beautiful—she is too beautiful. He can hardly bear it.

She had been through so much, already—Haven and the Dirth, the many prisons they tried to put her in (murderer, Inquisitor, cages with different gilds)—and none of it had broken her.

That inevitable departure—he prays that he will not be the thing to make her finally shatter.

Though he knows (perhaps better than anyone) that there is no one left to pray to.


	15. Radamancy

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Redamancy: act of loving in return  
> Solas/Lavellan, Solas POV  
> Drabble takes place of Chapter 16 of my longfic, There Is Only Forward

  
  
If she was real—and she most certainly was—than they all were. Shadows of their former selves, but real, and radiant in resistance.  Some of them deserved the better world he was striving towards.  
  
Some of them did not.  
  
(Though it mattered little, his judgements about who was and was not worthy of the new world he was building, as none of them would live to see it.)  
  
To grow closer to her was to feel more fully the horror of what he was going to do. The course from which he could not be swayed.

Still, the mystery of how she had managed to cross the Fade and  _find him_. Vigilance had said he’d been sloppy; perhaps that was true. In the future—the inevitable disappearing—he would have to take greater care to cover his tracks. Because while he could not say it had been easy for her (discussions after the fact seemed to suggest it was perseverance alone that allowed her to find him, a calibre of perseverance he would not suspect many capable of) it was certainly easy enough for her to accomplish it. And that was decidedly too easy.  
  
Not that he regretted that she had found him. At the time he had been cross, but gradually glad to be found. To not be left behind.  
  
In the grove where she had found him—circled by willow trees—he had once met Felassan….  
  
Among those ancient brothers and sisters still left to help him with his plan were none more dear to him than Felassan had been. And yet he had slain him without hesitation. Fen’Harel knew his path—he must tear down the Veil and restore the world as it should have been—but the journey was turning him into something he did not recognize, twisted and ugly.  
  
Perhaps… perhaps… he could do it with love.  
  
The way that she looks at him… she has taught him not to scorn her people, but pity them. Perhaps he should have all along. He should not have been cross with the Dalish for the circumstances that were not theirs to control, the centuries of distortions that led them to believe the things they did. In truth, their ignorance was more his fault than it was their own. He knew that now. He had come to see them through her eyes—they were a good people.  
  
But they were not  _his_  people.  
  
It was a good thing to keep in mind. That he was doing this  _for_  them as much as he did it  _to_ them. That the world was cruel to them was his own fault. He should never have allowed such a thing to come to pass. (No more.)  
  
For so long he had insisted privately that he did not feel this way. That every gesture was a part of a war strategy. He held her hand with the same difference that he would deploy troops. Like spreading an old map across a table by candlelight. He had gone through the motions of falling in love for no other reason than it was so plain that she  _wanted_  him to. It was useful, he reasoned, to give her what she wanted. A lovely and cherished illusion, but too fragile to withstand the battering rams she took to it: nearly losing her to the blizzard after the Templar Invasion. The kiss they had shared in the Fade.  
  
( _The thought that he had ever been impartial, shards…._ )  
  
And it should have changed when she found him in the Fade, that last night in the place the Dalish called Dirthavaren. That she had  _found him_. He had weaved around himself all manner of enchantments and illusions, barriers to keep out prying ears, closed doors, locks. And she had slipped through them so easily. Or, if not easily—easily enough— _too easily_ , for she had, in the end, found him. And there would come a time in which he did not want to be found, not by her nor by anyone.   
  
If she had done it once, there was no guarantee she would not try again; it was best, he knew, not to encourage such expeditions.  
  
…He liked touching her much too much. Fingers through her hair, hands holding hands.  
  
“Do you think he would hang me, now, if he could?”  
  
He spoke the words aloud, knowing the spirit-child who shared the tent with him would still be awake; it was not yet in his nature to sleep.  
  
In the dark, with Blackwall’s half-snores between them, Cole’s voice came, musical and full of wonder.   
  
“No, Solas. The Slow Arrow would not seek to pierce you, to punish you. Another arrow already has. He would only laugh, in that way he used to—the way you liked best.”


	16. The Rabbit and the Dog

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Graviloquence: grave speech  
> Cullen/Lavellan (unrequited), implied past Solas/Lavellan  
> Post-Main Game, Pre-Exalted Council, Cullen POV
> 
> *SPOILERS*  
> contains minor spoilers for my long fic, There Is Only Forward.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *SPOILERS*  
> contains minor spoilers for my long fic, There Is Only Forward.

  
  
  
The Rabbit and the Dog. 

That was what they called them, in the circles of the Orlesians who cared not for the lingering Inquisition now that some semblance of peace had been restored. Their gratitude had waned more rapidly than the moon. And now it was said that in some corners of that “high” society an aspiring artist had passed out small portraits of them depicted as terrible, beastly chimeras: the Inquisitor in all her regalia of rank with long, fur ears; Commander Rutherford (that overreaching Ferelden of such low birth) barking at her side, face covered in the  _kaddis_  of a Mabari hound, leashed to her hand with a clumsy, thick chain. The portrayal had been so popular the monikers had stuck like glue. It was said it was now typical to commission such degrading art. Allegedly one such noble had amassed an entire collection, and he brought these trinkets out as entertainment for his guests. 

It was, in a word, fashionable. 

Usually, Cullen cared little about such things, of course. After all, he had never held the Orlesians in high regard. Their game seemed to him at once dangerous and silly, the occupation of children with nothing better in which to invest their time. But the most recent reports of this fresh humiliation had him furious—not for his own sake, but for the Inquisitor, and the pain it would bring her. She had become (he had noticed) very good at concealing her distress, but he knew, based on their shared history, how deeply the cruel attacks upon her person based on her race still wounded her. Some wounds grow no easier to endure with time. He knew this as well as anyone. 

Just as well as he knew that, by now, she had pain enough to contend with. 

Though she had tried her best to hide it from them, from all of them. It was Dorian who she had confided in first. 

“I think,” she had said, in the dark of the Deep Roads, through the haze of elfroot smoke she increasingly relied on to manage her pain, “that I am dying.”

When they had returned she had been eager to regale them with the stories of the Deep Roads ancient Thaigs, strange dwarves and massive golems and Maker knows what else. (In his company, she had kindly omitted the vivid descriptions of lyrium branching out of the walls like some wild luminescent jungle.) 

But Dorian did not permit it her this storytelling. He had stood at her side, held her hand (she clutched his so tightly!) when she had told Cullen and Josephine (Leliana was, by now, long gone) the very same thing she had confessed to Dorian. 

“I am dying, and we must prepare for it.”

That was how she had said it. As though it was of so little consequence. As if it were another troop of red lyrium mad Templars or possessed Wardens. As if it was all in the course of things, expected, a nuisance, something they could marshall their strength to prepare for and then ride out. 

To Cullen, it was anything but. 

He had wanted to scream, to shout, to plead. Instead he had massaged the pommel of his sword until he was certain that in his distress he had worn the filigree to a fine, unblemished polish. 

The anchor had begun to pain her. Sometimes it was no more than a dull ache in her knuckles, like the kind the old women in Honnleath had felt like some kind of prescience at the approaching of a great storm. Other times she could not feel the limb at all; worse, she sometimes lost the articulation of her fingers entirely. 

“And now? How do you feel now?” Josephine had asked, hesitant. 

“I feel,” she said, her voice thick with weariness, “that instead of blood my veins are filled with shards of glass, and they are hollowing me from the inside out.”

Cullen had wept. It shamed him. Not because the sorrow was not real, nor the grief too hideous. He had not cried the great sniveling tears of his childhood before he had been taught bravery and strength. No, this display had shamed him because she had seen it; and in that moment, regardless of her own pain, she had sought to soothe him, his name like a lullaby on her lips. He should have been strong for her. He should have been able to comfort her. But the thought of her being ripped from him had been too dark a thought for him to bear with dignity. 

The Rabbit and the Dog. But if the Rabbit were to perish, who then would hold the leash of the beast?

That night he had spent in devoted, fanatic vigil at the marble feet of Andraste, in her cloister just off the garden. Begging, bargaining. Beseeching:  _Maker, please, do not take her to your side just yet. Even though she has been brave, and just, and performed great works among your children; though she has earned nothing but respite from her pain and eternal glory in the Golden City. Maker, please, though I know you long for her at your side as Andraste before her, do not take her yet. The faithful still need her._  

All ways of saying, though it felt so sinfully selfish he could not admit it even in his private prayers: _I still need her_. 

But his prayers were not answered, no matter the long hours of the night he spent feverishly reciting the Chant at the feet of the Maker’s bride. 

The Rabbit, they called her, but he never thought of her that way. When he heard her name (her name, not her title) it brought to his mind a picture of a beautiful town, built into the cliffs of a cerulean coast. He had no idea where the image came from. He had never seen such a city. He supposed it was possible that in her insidious, dream keeping way she had planted the image within him: houses bright white with lyme, tiered on steep cliffs like a wedding cake, and the sea all a-glitter at its feet. She was, before anything else, as sacred to him as a harbor to a tempest-tossed ship; a city that would generously send from a tower a light in the blackness of night to guide him home. 

Of course, like all port towns, once docked in the harbor one was not utterly safe, protected from harm: in this city of Her there were thieves and pickpockets, scoundrels and murderers, sickness, uncertainty, dishonesty, death. But always in sight of the sea that whispered of freedom, that promised reward to those who were strong enough to toil for it. 

This is what she was to him, though he would never tell her: he was no great communicator, and in the telling he’d no doubt trip over his tongue, bumble, and he could not bear the thought of such a confession being met with confusion—or worse, amusement. 

When she had come to him that one night—only that once, and never again—quaking with need—and put her mouth upon his—her lips had been salty as seawater. It was only later he realized this was not a product of his wild imaginings but because of her tears. She had begged him to console her, to shed his clothes for her, to let her take him inside of her, to fill the empty spaces within her with his presence to stop, at least for the night, the tide of her grief. But he knew that doing so would not lead her to love him. And he would not desecrate her like that: his Saint of Safe Harbor. His lighthouse.

Instead he cursed the name of the man who had been cruel and foolish enough to leave her: without love, without relief for her pain, without hope for recovery. Only that eel had kept the anchor from devouring her in the beginning; his abandonment of her seemed all the crueler to Cullen now that it was clear it had also condemned her to death. 

But no, no—not yet. 

The Rabbit was not lost while she still had her Dog. He would use all of the talents and gifts the Maker had bestowed upon him to keep her. The Dog would search, with keen nose and brute strength and perceptive ears. He would hunt from the fields of Ferelden to the towers of Tevinter, sniffing and searching until he would find the thing that would save her. He would deliver her from this fate she had never asked for nor relished, but had only ever borne with grace. He would return her life and her freedom to her, and this would be a greater service than any he had (or could have) performed. Better anyway than the lust and the carnal things she had once (but never again) asked him for. 

This, he was sure, was his Purpose. He had been spared an early death in a ditch, lyrium sick; he had been spared in Kinloch Hold. He had been permitted absolution for the terrible atrocities he had committed in Kirkwall. All of this and a thousand other worse fates he had been spared so he could find a way to cure her of the anchor. 

But as the months crept on, no tomes bestowed upon him the wisdom required to do so. No mage nor warlock nor hedge witch had the faintest clue what to do, and he searched far and wide for the most gifted of all those blessed with magic. Tinctures and tonics, salves and salts: none of these things had slowed the spread of the Anchor’s poison, nor offered her a moment of relief.

The Rabbit and her Dog. She was no rabbit, but he may as well have been a beast; he could not save her. Could not cure her. Could only keep watch over her as she slept, comfort her when she woke. And when she did sleep, when sleep took her, she slept so fitfully Cullen began to worry that by the time summer came there would be no need for an Exalted Council at all.

Her eyes cracked open like a door just slightly ajar; she blinked, slowly, smiled. Reached across her sheets to cover, then squeeze, his hand.

“My knight,” she murmured, voice still thick with sleep.

An old affection. Cullen did not have the heart to tell her how it cut him, how it grieved him to hear her call him that when he had so plainly failed to protect her from anything at all.


End file.
